Laura Aguilar describes herself as a mostly self-taught photographer.  Based outside of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley, Aguilar is third-generation Mexican American on her father’s side and Irish American on her mother’s side.  She identifies openly as a lesbian.  In this self-portrait, Aguilar presents her body so that it appears naturalized as a part of the surrounding landscape.  A witty twist on the classical tradition of the reclining female nude, Aguilar here positions herself so that the puddle in front of her appears to be a lake and her body becomes a mountain that rises above it.  Rather than foregrounding her obesity, Chicana ethnicity, or lesbianism – all of which make her an ostensible “outsider” in United States society – Aguilar emphasizes her unity with nature.  This fits with her larger stated goal of using photography to expose certain universalities underlying socially imposed categories.  She writes: “My artistic goal is to create photographic images that compassionately render the human experience, revealed through the lives of individuals in the lesbian/gay and/or persons of color communities.”

What you’ve just read is a wall-label that I recently wrote for an upcoming exhibition at a major museum.  The theme of the exhibition is sexuality and desire—the show will focus on gay, lesbian, and queer artists-of-all-stripes who, throughout the entire history of exhibition-making, have been under-represented and miss-represented (you know, things as simple as a text that reads “so-and-so’s dear friend Jake” when Jake was, in fact, “so-and-so’s” lover and partner of 25 years). 

Augilar is in our show because she is a lesbian, and she uses photography to explore her sexuality with unusual candor and frankness.  As you can see, her photographs are quite powerful. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about my sentence: Rather than foregrounding her obesity, Chicana ethnicity, or lesbianism – all of which make her an ostensible “outsider” in United States society – Aguilar emphasizes her unity with nature.  

What do we make of this? 

I’ve grouped together, in a nice little list, Augilar’s three -ity’s (obesity, ethnicity, and sexuality), all of which, I note, make her an “ostensible outsider.”  True story?  Too easy? How are all of these related?  Does the experience of a ‘fat’ person in any way mirror that of a ‘gay’ person?  Or a ‘Black’ or ‘Hispanic’ person? I have put fat, gay, black, and Hispanic in single quotes to show that I’m using terms borrowed from our label-ready society and that they are terms that carry a great deal of societal-baggage.

Are fat people perhaps, paradoxically, the most invisible yet discriminated-against group of them all?  In what ways does Augilar’s image deal with all of these issues?

I’m excited to hear your thoughts on the matter.

For now, I’ll leave you with a quote from one of my favorite authors, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. It’s from her fantastic, eye-opening, book Epistemology of the Closet:

“I recently gave an MLA talk purporting to explain how it’s possible to come out of the closet as a fat woman.  The apparent floating-free from its gay origins of that phrase ‘coming out of the closet’ in recent usage might suggest that the trope of the closet is so close to the heart of some modern preoccupations that it could be, or has been, evacuated of its historical gay specificity.”

Enjoy other great blog posts.

Jennifer is an art historian working in a major D.C. museum. She believes that art allows us to transcend and scrutinize our cultural perceptions and hopes to share this experience with you.